Forensic doctor does not rule out rape of Pipili victim

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Last Updated: Sat, Feb 09, 2013 02:03 hrs

Cuttack: In a blow to the Crime Branch of Odisha Police, a forensic scientist, who had examined the 19-year-old rape victim from Pipili, today told a judicial commission that sexual assault on the deceased girl was not ruled out when he examined her in January last year.

Former head of the forensic medicine and toxicology department of SCB Medical College Hospital Abhiram Behera repeatedly told Justice P K Mohanty Commission that sexual assault on the girl cannot be ruled out.

"I am saying it very consciously that as per my findingson the basis of examining the victim on January 19, 2012, sexual assault on her cannot be ruled out," the forensic scientist, who has since been retired from government service, told the Commission, much to the embarrassment of the counsels present before the Commission to defend the government and other government officials.

Behera spilled the bean when he was cross-examined by the counsel for the victim's family, Nishikant Mishra. Based on Behera's affidavit to the Commission, Mishra asked him about the findings of a team of doctors from AIIMS, New Delhi, which had expressed its inability to say exactly whether the girl was raped or not as they were examining her seven weeks after the incident.

On this view of the AIIMS team, when the advocate asked Behera that the experts from New Delhi have not ruled out the rape angle completely, the forensic scientist, presently working in a private hospital, said: "I also held the same view after examining the victim that sexual assault on her cannot be ruled out".

The State crime branch of police while filing the charge sheet in the case at a local court in Pipili last year had expressed its inability to substantiate the allegation of rape and accordingly had not charged the accused under section 376 of IPC.

Meanwhile, advocate Mishra also on the day filed yet another application before the Commission seeking a report from the State government as to what steps the government has now taken after the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) found fault with the government's action in dismissing the former Pipili police inspector from service.

The Tribunal has held that the government had not followed due procedure of law while dismissing the disgraced police officer from service. Mishra in his petition has maintained that the government step against the police officer was nothing but "eyewash" and was designed with mala fide intention to subside the then public outcry over the issue.